Arghya Sengupta’s op-ed in today’s TOI cites RSS founder Gowalkar. Cites police atrocities during Hashimpura ‘87, but not Mumbai ‘91, Gujarat ‘02, Delhi, Kashmir, Manipur etc. 🤭
I agree with you. It's not as if the author could not have anticipated the grilling either. Karan Thapar has done this to all his guests numerous times. He grills and doesn't forget any answer. The author was poorly prepared and one wonders why anyone would even take the trouble to read his book now when he himself can't justify its purpose beyond some vague homage to Gandhian ideas that the Constitution "ignored" apparently. And this is also why NLU graduates are not taken all that seriously in the mainstream media. Of course, only NLS is old enough to have many older graduates as of now (maybe NALSAR to some degree as well). These law schools excel in teaching students certain kinds of puffery under the garb of good English language, but when faced with a equally/better-prepared expert on a certain subject-area, they seem to fold so easily despite it being their "area of expertise".
Arghya is generally brilliant and a very sound legal mind. I think what’s happened here is that he doesn’t have any conviction in what he wrote (making his project sadder and more dangerous). To argue that the constitution is colonial because it finds its base framework in a British era act or that it comes with a unitary/ central bias (staying away from detailed local self government), is about as nuanced an argument as saying it’s also drafted in English, ergo British. Forced to engage with its substance and departures from colonial articulations of power v the framework of rights, as Thapar makes him do, he reduces his whole argument to one of semantics and historical trivia. Just as the penal laws in India being colonial literally and because of the machinery of violence they place in state’s hands, is being used to draft laws that in part further consolidate the state’s power - Arghya finds himself a witting participant in a constitutional project he cannot fully (at least intellectually, morals aside) digest. This was plain to see.
Regardless of whoever it is, if they have this kind of hollow legal reasoning from guys like ASG for such change, then it will only lead to more problems. I am not left or right, but this whole "national pride" idea is a political game rather than anything that will actually help individuals. There is no shame in accepting that Macaulay's 1860 IPC has shaped our criminal jurisprudence for the better, but the new Indian criminal laws have numerous loopholes, are largely a copy-paste job except they are poorly organised. One hopes the Parliamentary Committees can adequately address this. Similarly, creating a new Constitution is also not something that can be easily justified unless the present one is entirely unworkable. The problem with guys like ASG is that they go abroad when it's convenient and they benefit from it but then come back and criticise Western influences. The hypocrisy could be overlooked if their arguments had substance, but those don't hold ground either.
Who in the Modi government is masterminding the agenda of "constitutional rewriting" and pushing the decolonisation idea? Rijuju? Tushar Mehta? Mota bhai? Sahib himself?
But think about this, if the director of India's apparently biggest legal think tank can be countered so easily and fallacies of his arguments can be debunked by a non-legal personality (on a subject which should be forte for every lawyer and especially of a founder of country's biggest legal think tank), doesn't this reflect the hollowness of the legal education system of the country and puts a big question mark on the legal profession itself?
Where are we headed? Do we have any value towards contributing anything positive to this country? (I agree that there have been some legends under this profession; but largely the profession has been overwhelmed with people like Sengupta)
Yeah. It was a demolition job by Mr. Thapar. For a journalist to put a "legal scholar" in place so easily is quite impressive. The title of his book itself is very suspect and the author is unable to justify it in any form or manner. He conceded to nearly all the counter-points and unwittingly even contradicted his own premise of the Constitution being "colonial" in his responses. Hell, he even claimed that the book was not to critique the Constitution but was more about its origin story. Then, why even bother with that title? It's clearly aimed at generating attention (and controversy, maybe) but without any real substance. And his recommendations for changing/improving the Constitution are also extremely vague and fluid (how exactly can there be "moral regeneration" for a billion-odd people using one written document?), to a point where it seems like he's sitting on the fence about it because he knows the Constitution's longevity and effectiveness cannot be easily undermined. It doesn't seem like the book contributes anything much to constitutional debates, in all seriousness. With all due respect, guys like ASG and Sai Deepak are not the same calibre as Ambedkar and BN Rau.
This just shows how unprepared Arghya was. It seems obvious that the foundation of his new book is not a genuine belief backed by research about a "colonial Constitution", but a nudge by the Centre to propagate the idea that our current Constitution is inadequate and influenced by foreign elements and that is why it needs to be "suitably amended". Thapar couldn't have any gotcha moments with Salve who shut him up every time.
Thapar demolished him with an elementary point: how is the constitutional colonial when it gives all citizens the fundamental rights and equality, which the British didn't?
The whole "colonialist constitution" rhetoric, advanced by Arghya and J Sai Deepak, provides intellectual justification to make massive constitutional amendments. Now, we already had such a Commission set up by Atal Behari Vajpayee to do this (NCRWC) . The NCRWC had great luminaries on board (from all ideologies, communities and regions) and its report made excellent recommendations, such as:
- Right to speedy justice, education and clean drinking water as explicit rights
- Return of the right to property
- Curbing of electoral malpractices and electoral corruption
- Appointment of distinguished jurists as SC judges, as the provision has never been used
- Appointment of more SCs and STs as SC judges
- Special courts to hear criminal cases against politicians
- Appointment of only non-political persons as governors
Bear in mind that Vajpayee was a BJP PM, yet Modi has not implemented any of the NCRWC recommendations. Will he do so in his third term? Or will he set up a new Constitution Review Commission, perhaps with Arghya and J Sai Deepak as members? And will such a new Constitution Review Commission reiterate the NCRWC suggestions, or frame a new set of "dharmic" recommendations in line with the core BJP agenda?
My guess is that Modi will do the latter and the real impact of Arghya and J Sai Deepak's books will be seen in Modi's third term.
https://twitter.com/Arghya_justify/status/1710873757177287073
Where are we headed? Do we have any value towards contributing anything positive to this country? (I agree that there have been some legends under this profession; but largely the profession has been overwhelmed with people like Sengupta)
The whole "colonialist constitution" rhetoric, advanced by Arghya and J Sai Deepak, provides intellectual justification to make massive constitutional amendments. Now, we already had such a Commission set up by Atal Behari Vajpayee to do this (NCRWC) . The NCRWC had great luminaries on board (from all ideologies, communities and regions) and its report made excellent recommendations, such as:
- Right to speedy justice, education and clean drinking water as explicit rights
- Return of the right to property
- Curbing of electoral malpractices and electoral corruption
- Appointment of distinguished jurists as SC judges, as the provision has never been used
- Appointment of more SCs and STs as SC judges
- Special courts to hear criminal cases against politicians
- Appointment of only non-political persons as governors
- Ending perks and privileges for ministers
https://web.archive.org/web/20150404001445/http://lawmin.nic.in/ncrwc/finalreport/v1ch11.htm
Bear in mind that Vajpayee was a BJP PM, yet Modi has not implemented any of the NCRWC recommendations. Will he do so in his third term? Or will he set up a new Constitution Review Commission, perhaps with Arghya and J Sai Deepak as members? And will such a new Constitution Review Commission reiterate the NCRWC suggestions, or frame a new set of "dharmic" recommendations in line with the core BJP agenda?
My guess is that Modi will do the latter and the real impact of Arghya and J Sai Deepak's books will be seen in Modi's third term.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtXTk8Zs-ns